Vice Premier Shimon Peres speaking to the press outside the State Department in Washington after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday. (AP)
Peres: Israel achieved its war goals, weakened Hezbollah
By Shmuel Rosner, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service
Vice Premier Shimon Peres on Sunday told United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Israel had achieved its goals during the war, and that Hebollah had lost more than half its fighting power.
"They (Hezbollah) thought they will bring Israel on our knees. I don't say it's easy but we withstood it and we feel that we went out of it militarily in a good shape and politically in an even better one," Peres, in Atlanta to raise humanitarian funds for northern Israel, told a news conference.
"We are not going to kill everybody that was in Hezbollah. We estimated that almost 600 were killed and the same number were wounded. So almost half of them were (put out of action). They will have to lick their wounds," Peres told Reuters on Tuesday.
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He told Rice that he still supported Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, adding that now was not the time for internal conflicts in Israel.
He also that the UN cease-fire resolution was an important achievement because it had been reached with the full support of the moderate Arab states, and also because Russia joined the vote against transferring weapons to Hezbollah.
Peres told Rice that states engaged in the war on terror should work to rebuild Lebanon in order to prevent Iran from getting to it first. He also asked the secretary of state for U.S. help in freeing the abducted Israel Defense Forces soldiers, a matter which was left unsolved by the UN resolution.
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